


Islands in Space

by Cookies_and_Chaos



Category: Malory Towers - Enid Blyton
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:49:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28736763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cookies_and_Chaos/pseuds/Cookies_and_Chaos
Summary: Irene feels overwhelmed sometimes looking up at space. Written for the 12 Days of Christmas Challenge 2020, Day 12, "Twelve Lonely Islands".
Relationships: Irene (Malory Towers)/Belinda Morris
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2
Collections: 12 Days of Christmas Challenge 2020





	Islands in Space

"Do you think we'll ever get up there? People, I mean, not you and I."

Belinda turned her head to one side to get a better look at Irene.

"Maybe. Humans seem quite determined to keep doing things that no-one thought possible," Belinda said. She looked back up at the stars. "Maybe one day it'll be like getting on a plane and flying off to another land, I mean I bet a hundred years ago people never thought we'd be doing that. Maybe in a hundred years, people will be visiting space."

"Imagine, visiting different planets. They make me think of islands in space, all alone out there are surrounded by nothingness..."

Belinda looked back at Irene. "You sound almost maudlin all of a sudden, everything alright?"

Irene pressed her lips together tightly for just a second and then smiled sadly. "What if this last term is it and we'll all splinter off and never see one another again?"

"Oh." Belinda hadn't quite been expecting _that._ "I don't think that'll happen, not with everyone."

"It's just... I'll be off studying music, you're going to art school, Darrell, Sally and Alicia are off to university, who _knows_ what Mary-Lou will do." Irene sighed. "I'm going to miss Alicia terribly. We've been friends since our very first day at Malory Towers. She won't remember to write after a few weeks and I'm not up to much when it comes to remembering those things either..."

Belinda rolled onto her side and propped herself up onto her elbow. "You're making yourself sad over things that haven't even happened yet."

"But they will, won't they?" Irene said. "We'll all just drift apart, it doesn't matter how close we've been all this time. We'll finish our studies and go out to work, then we'll marry and have families of our own. And I know things have to change but I just wish this didn't. This is too big of a change."

Belinda gently took Irene's hand in hers and caressed the back of it with her thumb. "Well...I'm not entirely sure that all that many of us will marry..." — She raised an eyebrow at Irene who finally smiled — "and maybe you're right that Alicia will be awful at correspondence but at least for the next few years she'll probably pester Darrell into putting her messages in along with Darrell's letters and she _will_ write. And so will I..."

There was the deeper worry, Belinda thought, as Irene's expression grew solemn all over again.

"We're not that far away, you know. Less than an hour on the train. I will come and visit and we'll have holidays together..." Belinda said. 

"It's not the same though, is it?"

Belinda thought of nights spent wrapped around one another in a bed made for one, of days spent out in the countryside of Cornwall with just each other for company, of five years of life intermingled so neatly that it seemed as though they had always been that way.

"No, but it's not forever, either," Belinda said, "and then we can do all the things we talked about."

Irene didn't look convinced and Belinda felt like she needed some reassurance herself, so she ducked her head and kissed Irene gently.

"I promise. One day we'll have our own home with a...a room for your music and another for my art. And maybe one day we'll even get to see people make it up to the stars. We'll cuddle up under a blanket and hear it on the radio, or maybe everyone will have televisions by then, who knows? Then we'll remember this night and how we froze outside talking about how things have to change."

"You make it sound so easy," Irene said.

"It won't be, I know." Belinda traced her fingers over the speckles of ink on Irene's fingers. "But it will be worth it and that's what matters, right?"

Irene just pulled her back down for another kiss but that was all the answer that Belinda needed.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to every single person who contributed to 12 Days of Christmas and to everyone who read, commented and sent kudos to people writing. Hopefully, see you all again next year :)


End file.
